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The Center conducts research and analysis to help shape public debates over proposed federal and state budget and tax policies and to help ensure that policymakers consider the needs of low-income families and individuals in these debates. Our work focuses on the following areas of research:

The budget details what the federal government will spend on particular programs and how it will finance that spending.

We analyze the President’s annual budget proposal and major congressional budget plans, focusing especially on programs for low- and moderate-income families. We also examine long-term budget challenges and promote measures to improve fiscal responsibility in an equitable way.

The individual income tax and payroll tax together generate 84 percent of federal revenues, while corporate, excise, and other taxes generate the rest. We analyze major tax proposals, examining their likely impact on the economy, on the nation’s fiscal health, and on the government’s ability to address critical national needs, especially over the long term. We also examine the impact of tax proposals on households at different income levels.

State and local governments provide most funding for K-12 education, public colleges and universities, health care, transportation, public safety, and other services.

They finance these services mainly through income and sales taxes and fees. We analyze budget and tax policies and work with state officials and state-based nonprofits to develop policies that address the needs of low-income families.

We work to ensure that these programs provide coverage that meets the needs of low-income children and families, seniors, and people with disabilities. We also work to ensure that proposals that would affect these programs do not slash benefits for, or impose costs on, the nation’s most vulnerable people.

Social Security provides monthly benefits to more than 50 million retired workers and workers with disabilities, their dependents, and their survivors.

We examine Social Security’s effects on poverty and on particular demographic groups. We also analyze Social Security reform proposals to determine their likely impact on the program’s long-term solvency and its effectiveness in reducing poverty and hardship.

Economic growth is key to improving living standards and the quality of life across the United States.

We examine how changes in the economy affect federal and state budgets, and how federal and state budget and tax proposals would affect economic growth. We also examine trends in employment and promote reforms to strengthen the unemployment insurance system, provide more adequate federal and state minimum wages, and create policies that would lead to full employment.

Reducing poverty and inequality and improving opportunity are major national challenges.

We analyze economic developments affecting low- and moderate-income Americans, including trends in poverty and income inequality. In addition, we analyze the extent to which the safety net is reaching people in need, and we promote its successes of recent decades.

SNAP helps over 40 million low-income people afford a nutritionally adequate diet; WIC provides nutritious food for about 7 million low-income women, infants, and children; and school breakfast and lunch programs provide free and reduced-price meals to over 20 million low-income children.

We design and promote policies to make SNAP stronger, more accessible, and easier to administer; help states design their SNAP programs; help ensure that WIC has the funds to serve all eligible applicants; and design and promote policies that increase school meal participation by low-income children.

The Family Income Support (FIS) team at CBPP researches and analyzes federal and state issues related to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and helps states design their TANF programs to reach more eligible families and meet their particular needs. FIS also issues analyses detailing the harmful impact of proposals that would weaken anti-poverty programs and lifting up evidence on promising policies to expand work opportunities to struggling workers.

The TANF block grant, with which states provide direct financial assistance, child care, education and job training, and other services to low-income families, was created in 1996 to replace Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC).

FIS’ research has found TANF reaches many fewer poor families than it used to, and TANF benefits have lost a fifth of their value since 1996 in most states, making it very hard for families to meet basic needs. FIS analyses have also shown that states’ spending has shifted away from core areas of basic assistance, work programs and supports, and child care to other state programs and services.

We work with state and local housing agencies and advocates to improve the effectiveness of federal low-income housing programs, and we study how well-designed housing assistance programs can advance such goals as reducing concentrations of poverty.

Policies that restrict greenhouse-gas emissions are needed to encourage energy efficiency and greater use of clean energy sources. But because they will significantly raise the price of fossil-fuel energy products, these policies pose serious challenges for low- and moderate-income households.

We analyze the potential effects of climate change policies on those households and on the federal budget. We also design measures to ensure that the higher energy prices resulting from climate change legislation do not drive more households into poverty or make poor households even poorer.